1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multilayer ceramic electronic device in which dielectric layers are extremely thin.
2. Description of the Related Art
Together with miniaturization and thinning of electronic equipment, miniaturization and thinning of the multilayer ceramic electronic device stored therein are requested. Thus, thinning of the dielectric layers in the multilayer ceramic electronic device is requested. For instance, the thickness of the dielectric layers is requested to be 5 μm or less.
However, the failures, such as insulation deterioration of the dielectric layers is likely to generate during a high temperature load test and a temperature characteristic of capacitance is deteriorated, are generated as the dielectric layers become thinner. In order to solve such problems, for instance, it is presented to set a metallic thin film layer between the dielectric layers and the internal electrode layers in Patent Article 1. Further, it is presented to unevenly distribute Vanadium (V) component in the crystal grain boundary in Patent Article 2.
However, further miniaturization of the electronic devices is always required. In order to thin the thickness of the dielectric layers to 0.5 μm or less, the dielectric grains constituting the dielectric layers become smaller. However, the specific permittivity of the dielectrics generally tends to depend on the grain size of the dielectric grains, and that the specific permittivity may decrease with extremely small grain size. Thus, the specific permittivity remarkably decreases when the dielectric layers in the multilayer ceramic electronic device are thinned to 0.5 μm or less.
[Patent Article 1] Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-7562
[Patent Article 2] Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2007-197233